Computer printers are well known in the prior art and include dot-matrix printers, piezo-electric ink jet printers, laser printers, thermal ink jet printers, handheld ink jet printers, and other ink jet printing devices. When using an ink jet printing device, an ink jet cartridge can be installed or otherwise mounted to the ink jet printing device to provide a supply of ink.
Ink supplies are often offered to customers at different price points, high yield cartridges container greater quantities of ink and cost ore, while low yield cartridges cost less, but provide less ink to the consumer. To simplify the manufacture of ink supplies, it is sometimes desirable to use the same or a similar-sized cartridge housing for both the high yield and low yield cartridges. As a result, low yield cartridges are sometimes shipped partially filled, which can lead to several problems. In such instances, vibration and environment changes can cause ink to migrate throughout the interior body of the ink jet cartridge such that the ink becomes overly dispersed within the interior body of the ink jet cartridge. In these instances, problems such as depriming and starvation can occur when an insufficient amount of ink is available for dispensing from the ink jet cartridge.
To facilitate lower yield volumes for ink jet cartridges, one conventional ink jet cartridge can include one or more interior walls within the interior body of the ink jet cartridge. In such instances, relatively small interior compartments can be created within the cartridge. In this manner, a relatively small amount of ink can be compartmentalized within the ink jet cartridge, and the ink can be dispensed from an adjacent outlet in the cartridge. However, manufacturing these conventional ink jet cartridges can require retooling the associated manufacturing or assembly processes or otherwise providing a special mold to provide unique geometry and chamber size within the interior body of the ink jet cartridge. Retooling such processes can be time consuming and expensive, particularly when production demand shifts between low and high ink volumes for ink jet cartridges.